Adventures in Tech

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Resetting outlook email profiles via registry.It’s a bit of a quiet Wednesday, well its not really, I’ve got more work than I know what to do with, however seem to have been working like a blue tailed fly for weeks now and the workload isn’t getting any smaller.. So I’ve decided I’ll work at a rate that isn’t going to kill me.

Today I thought I’d mention a useful registry hack I’ve discovered for clearing out an outlook profile through the registry.
But before I go too far.. What is an outlook profile?
Outlook has individual user profiles and unlike most normal applications these aren’t linked to your user account. These profiles can be managed in windows by using the Mail control panel icon (filename: C:\windows\system32\MLCFG32.CPL).
Through this all the profile options can be configured and setup.

Now in an exchange environment some timesoutlook just loses it and often can be fixed by creating a new outlook profile and this is much quicker than creating the user a whole new profile under Documents and Settings.
In some situations you may wish to reset the users outlook profile but can’t run the CPL (on a Terminal server for example) or the MLCFG32.cpl doesn’t seem to be resetting the profile correctly.
NOTE: We are talking about editing the registry here, so please take great care and have a backup of your registry handy just in case ;)

- close Outlook
- Outlook settings will be lost
- find user in registry
* HKEY_Users
* look for user's ID (use getsid for this)
* Software >> Miscrosoft >> Windows NT >> Current Version >> Windows Messaging Subsystem >> Profiles/
- all folders (keys) listed under profiles will be the outlook profiles that user account has
- delete all of them.
- open Outlook
- outlook will ask you to setup your accounts again.


That’s it! See didn’t break your machine.. Oh it did? My bad!

Hopefully this was helpful to someone! I know I’ve used it a few times and is even more useful when you’re trying to do things in a somewhat secured environment.

Two posts within a week!! I’d better be careful!

Caveman

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Ok.. Its been awhile!!WOW.. its been ages since my last post! yes I'm still alive, no I haven't died, yes I've been super busy!

I am currently working fulltime/semi part time for an IT company in Sydney. On top of that I'm still plodding my way through my university degree, which is probably becoming more and more pointless every week.

So what do I do? I'm currently working as what effectively is a windows engineer, although I don't get the title or the pay but I still get the work load and the responsibility. However the company I work for are really good with giving me time off to do uni. Last semester I was only at work 2 days a week instead of full time! When I have uni break I normally work full time and lots of overtime to make up for it. They also pay me peanuts but I'm not to fussed about that and its worth having a slight drop in pay for the flexibility for uni.

I also get lots of experience and get to work with some interesting environments. They aren't super huge with the biggest one having around 1500 users but none the less its a big change from the unix admin work I was doing before.
Moving over to doing more highend windows support has also been an interesting learning curve and certainly one I'm glad I've made, but of course mad google skills are still the key to learning more. The number of problems I can solve regularly just be using a few google quires never ceases to amaze me.

So what at I doing in the forum world I hear you ask? Well nothing, I don't admin any boards, irc channels or random unix servers anymore. I don't even hang out in any forums at all or have much to do with any of the contacts I had on irc or on the forum boards.

Last year (2007) turned out to be a bad year for my family with my Mum was diagnosed with cancer a few weeks before christmas 2006. It turned out to be Sarcoma, which is a very aggressive form of cancer. She was operated just after Christmas and given radio therapy which ended up making her very sick with a 2 and a half week stay in hospital.
Prognoses was good, however in June it was discovered that the cancer had spread to the lungs and being so aggressive it was deemed terminal and she was given 6 months to live.
She died on the 6th of December in the emergency ward of the San hospital, almost 6 months to the day from being diagnosed terminal, after a very very brave fight and having had as much fun from life while she could in those 6 months.

University has just started again for me this semester. I'm currently doing a third year network subject, a java programming subject and formal logic as a filer subject.
So far I think I'm really going to enjoy the networking subject which takes what I did a few semesters ago to a higher leave. We also get some contact with Cisco routers, which again we did a few semesters ago but this semester we will be covering more than how to set an IP address in a router!!!

Ok That's all for now. I'm going to try to post interesting things I discover at work from time to time!

Caveman

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The mass of systemsI have recently changed by computer setup and I thought you might all be interested in having a look.

Click the photo to travel to the flickr


Gear shown in the photos is as follows:

Main computer:
AMD XP 2600 barton core
1GB Corsair DDR ram
3x300GB and 1x150GB hard drives giving 1.050TB
Leadtek Geforce FX 5600 video card
Sound blaster Audigy ZS sound card.
3x10/100 network cards
DVD burner

Server box
Celeron 333
256 MB sd ram
1x20GB hard drive.
3x10/100 network cards

Ibook
1.2Ghz G4
512MB DDR ram
20GB hard disk
DVD rom - CD burner

Dell - Latitude | D610
Pentium M 2.0GhZ
1GB ram
60GB hard disk
DVD burner

Switch
Level one FSW-1610TX
16 port 10/100 switch

Wireless access point
Linksys WAP54G

Belkin Surge Pro F9D800au-5M-ORG

AOC 17" LCD monitor 8MS


The Dell is the newer system in the setup, however that's not the interesting part.
I control all these systems from the one keyboard and mouse.
To switch from my main system to the ibook laptop I just move the mouse off the left edge of the main screen and it moves onto the laptop screen.
To move to the dell I move off the right side of the main monitor and onto the dell system.
Keyboard and mouse work prefect AND even the clipboard gets copied across, its fantastic! The program I use to do this is synergy http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/.
It runs as a server on my main box and the client system (dell and ibook) all connect in. Its totally cross platform and currently I have it running on OS X, Kubuntu linux and windows XP. I have also confirmed it works on vista.

Frankly I see this as better than dual monitors as it means I can hammer one system and still have a responsive system to use.
I have also noticed that synergys still works well when cpu load on the server system is 100%

Hope everyone had a happy new year and a nice christmas.

Later!

Caveman

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Backups 101Backup scripts 101

Finally I get around to posting an entry about how my backup scripts work.
Firstly: I am going to explain how my backups get from the different systems on my network to the new backup box (see my last post for more info on the backup box).

Biocorporation (my main desktop box) is normally on 24/7 and goes for weeks at a time without a reboot. Normally it only gets rebooted if something horrible happens and it eats it tail or I do a heap of updates and think its "due".
On Biocorporation I have the following script:
START SCRIPT
#!/bin/bash

RSYNC=/usr/bin/rsync
{
cd /home/caveman/scripts/ $*

date > server-lastbackup.log
$RSYNC -rptgoDvL /data/backuplinks/ backupuser@10.1.1.11::data >> server-lastbackup.log&

}
END SCRIPT

Ok so go through the script.
The { cd section changes the script path, I will explain why in a sec.

Date > server-lastbackup.log puts the date into the top of a log file. This log file in stored in /home/caveman/scripts but we don't have to put that path because of the CD done above.

The rsync command is the business end of the script. I have folders all over the place, for example all my emails are in /home/caveman/Mail, all my pictures are in /data/photos. So instead of having to run a rsync command for each folder I link all the folders I want to backup in to /data/backuplinks then I use basically rsync -a with an option to FOLLOW system links.
NOTE: this would cause problems if using rsync to backup the whole system for that I recommend -a.
Now this copies all my data over to the backup box, I run this as a cron job around lunch time when I am not at my computer.

On the backup box I have the following 2 scripts.
START SCRIPT
#!/bin/sh

BACKDIR=/data/backup/caveman/daily
MV=/bin/mv
RM=/bin/rm
CP=gcp

if [ -d $BACKDIR/day7 ]; then
$RM -rf $BACKDIR/day7 ;
fi;

if [ -d $BACKDIR/day6 ]; then
$MV $BACKDIR/day6 $BACKDIR/day7 ;
fi;

if [ -d $BACKDIR/day5 ]; then
$MV $BACKDIR/day5 $BACKDIR/day6 ;
fi;

if [ -d $BACKDIR/day4 ]; then
$MV $BACKDIR/day4 $BACKDIR/day5 ;
fi;

if [ -d $BACKDIR/day3 ]; then
$MV $BACKDIR/day3 $BACKDIR/day4 ;
fi;

if [ -d $BACKDIR/day2 ]; then
$MV $BACKDIR/day2 $BACKDIR/day3 ;
fi;

if [ -d $BACKDIR/day1 ]; then
$MV $BACKDIR/day1 $BACKDIR/day2 ;
fi;

if [ -d $BACKDIR/day0 ]; then
$MV $BACKDIR/day0 $BACKDIR/day1 ;
fi;

if [ -d $BACKDIR/day1 ]; then
cd $BACKDIR/day1 && find . -print | cpio -dpl ../day0 ;
fi;

touch $BACKDIR/day0 ;

chown -R backupuser:caveman /data/backup/ ;
END SCRIPT

I am not going to explain this in detail however this site does a great job.

The basic idea is the first days backups go to day0 then on the second day they get moved to day1 and day0 gets recreated, however this is all done without using heaps of disk space. Due to the linking only changes have to be stored again, files that are the same as a past backup are just linked to. This is something you should understand before using these scripts, I am not going to cover it today as I will take be all day, however the link above does a good job.

I should note I use cd $BACKDIR/day1 && find . -print | cpio -dpl ../day0 ;
Instead of a cp -al command as I am using openbsd on the backup box which by default does not have the gnu copy util and I also found it to be just a touch faster.

Now the above script gives me a 7 day rolling backup, which is great.
However I also do a monthly backup.

START SCRIPT
#!/bin/sh

BACKDIR=/data/backup/caveman/monthly/
MV=/bin/mv
RM=/bin/rm
CP=gcp

if [ -d $BACKDIR/month3 ]; then
$RM -rf $BACKDIR/month3 ;
fi;

if [ -d $BACKDIR/month2 ]; then
$MV $BACKDIR/month2 $BACKDIR/month3 ;
fi;

if [ -d $BACKDIR/month1 ]; then
$MV $BACKDIR/month1 $BACKDIR/month2 ;
fi;

cd /data/backup/caveman/daily/day0/ && find . -print | cpio -dpl /data/backup/caveman/monthly/month1/ ;


touch $BACKDIR/month1 ;



chown -R backupuser:caveman /data/backup/ ;
echo "monthly caveman backup script ran" ;
END SCRIPT

This script takes the month 3 backup and removes it' then it makes month 2 month 3 and month 1 month 2.
Then it creates month1 from day0 backup.

Now the really cool part of all this is the linking.
If I have a 10GB file that never changes, using the above backup system it will only be stored on disk once.
Even if the file exists in month 3, month 2, month1 and days 7 to 0 as long as its unchanged the file will only be stored once.
If I make a change the file will then be stored twice until the old version of the file gets removed at the end of 3 months.

This backup system provides me with a daily backup for 7 days and monthly backup for 3 months.
Currently I have 32GB of data on my biocoporation deskop that needs to be backed up.
The current size of my whole backups (7 days + 3 months) comes in at 40GB.
Which means I have made 8GB of changes in data.

Now backing up the windows systems is not so simple, no rsync!
However it's still easy enough to do.
The same scripts are used on the backup server side, however in addition to these you need to have a samba share that points to the day0 folder and is access able by the windows system.

I then use a little tool called Karen's Replicator http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp

This tool will find changes in files and with the right settings can be programmed to remove files from the destination that don't exist on the source.
It can also be set to only copy files that have changed. One small fault with this is that it has a hard time with outlook and outlook express mail files. Even if you just open outlook and don't make any changes to file it will still copy the whole file over in the backup as it thinks it's changed.
I believe this is because of how the outlook data file works, I suspect it would be very hard to get around this without having code that could open the pst file.

The hard part was working out how I was going to run this file, the windows computers in the house are not on 24/7 and are on and off at odd times.
The best solution I could find was to run the backup are log off. Turns out this works really well. You shut your computer down, turn off the screen and go to bed. The backups will go and once done the computer will shutdown on its own.
I should also add that if Karen's Replicator can't find the samba share due to the network being down or the server offline it won't hang and crash logout. It just gracefully ends and goes to shutdown.

I run Karen's Replicator by creating a shortcut to the backup job, and popping that into the C:\WINDOWS\system32\GroupPolicy\User\Scripts\Logoff folder.
Even if you are not connected to a domain controller and hence not using a group policy anything in this folder will be executed on logoff.

And its done!
So what about you Mac people? Well OS X has rsync, do I need to say any more?

Hope this is useful to someone one day!

Caveman

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Back from the lost land - And backups!SO.. Its been awhile since my last post.
But I have been busy, or that's the excuse this time.
I have lots of news to tell but instead of one huge post I will do this bit by
bit.
Firstly let me finish off what I ended up doing for my backup solution.

All the parts arrived and I put the system together. The mini-itx board is
surprisingly easy to get into a mini-itx case. The instruction booklet that
comes with the board is very wanting however. Which means one has to put some
thought into wiring up the USB ports.

I decided to give freenas a try and was less than impressed. I think freenas
would be fine if you wanted just a dumb nas box and that's all. However I was
looking for run things in cron which freebsd does not ship with and I also had
problems getting samba to authenticate share with username and password.

Next step was openbsd. I have been wanting to try openbsd for ages as I have
seen some very impressive things with its firewall. The other selling point was
one remote hole in 8 years.. Not bad.
Installing openbsd however is a bloody pain in the backside, I am sure its fine
if you have done it 50 times before but the first few times suck.
The main issues I had were with partitioning the disk and volume sizes.
However once past this the rest of the install was fairly easy. One word of
warning here: If you have never installed a linux distro before you will find
the openbsd install really hard!

Openbsd takes me back to my slackware days, with the easy to understand rc
scripts and none of the init.d stuff that makes my head hurt.
The default openbsd install is very basic, with almost nothing enabled by
default, which for my uses was fantastic!
It does have a few "security" items, which did throw me. Some demons wont run if
their config file has the wrong permissions this includes execute permissions as
root.
Once the system was installed I went and installed samba by following the
documentation on the openbsd web page.
Next I created the backup folders and started my backups using rsync over ssh.
It was then that I noticed that the network performance was really low (2-3MB/S)
over a 100MBIT link.
After some reading of the documentation I discovered that the key sizes on
openssh on the latest openbsd are larger and with my lower end hardware this was
causing the slow down. Instead of changing the key sizes I decided to run a
rsync server.
The rsync server is one of the simpler server demons out there. It also totally
fixed the speed problem and makes me recommend using the rsync demon unless you
need the security of ssh.
I would still use ssh for any transfers over the internet.

As for the backup scripts I am using? Well, that's coming in another post.

Later!

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Mirco sized backup systems - The dilemma! - Part 2There has been progress since my last post!
I have decided that I will keep my current server/router/kitchen sink and get another system for the backups.

I figured out I can put this backup system on one of the shelves in the garage and then wire up a cat5 socket and a power point for it. The good part of this is its in a totally different location in the house and gets my backups off my server.

Hardware was a hard one. I decided to go with one of the VIA embedded mini-itx motherboards. It has a 600Mhz processor, one ddr ram slot, one pci slot, sound, vga, 10/100 and all the IDE stuff. The motherboard cooling is totally fanless.

All I had to do then was to decide on was a case or a build my own. Personally I hate building computer cases so I decided on Morex Venus 669 Case. I would have loved to go for the Travla C147 1U Rackmount Dual Mini-ITX Case which would have looked great sitting next to my rack mount switch, however at 169pounds, I thought better of it.

I am going to boot the operating system which will probably be some kind of BSD from a compact flash card using a compact flash to IDE adaptor. The aim of this is to allow the hard disks to spin down when not being used, which will save power and keep the heat down.

The motherboard comes with its own 10/100 network card, but I am thinking I might also get a gigabit card to go with that so I can have a super high speed link to my system and the 10/100 can go to the switch. Its not like I don't have enough network cable spare to run two wires to garage!
Unless I get a gigabit switch, but I think that might be overkill.

I am hoping that I might be able to get away with either no fans at all OR a 120mm slow speed temperature threshold activated fan.
Also looking at using wake-on-lan to run the system only during certain hours when its needed.

I am very interested to see how the compact flash part works out. I have read about a few people using this to run small embedded style operating systems and it seems to have worked well. The only thing I worry about is all the write accesses to the card that an operating system will generate killing the card really quickly.

As a side note: when I get around to building a new router box I am certainly looking at using a mini-itx board, a Morex Cubid 3688 Mini-ITX Case. a 2.5" hard disk and a VIA EPIA CL6000E motherboard. The end result would be tiny! The CL6000E has dual 10/100 network interfaces and is prefect for a tiny router based setup. The only catch might be at 65mm(H) x 210mm(D) x 258mm(W) it might become a cat toy!


Till part 3!

Caveman

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